


Guardian at Hell's Gate

by thefrogg



Series: Salt!verse [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-04
Updated: 2013-03-04
Packaged: 2017-12-04 08:15:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/708547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefrogg/pseuds/thefrogg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The battle isn't over.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Guardian at Hell's Gate

**Author's Note:**

> Previously posted at my livejournal.

Sam and Dean stumbled off to bed early, Bobby's gentle hints getting little resistance. Suspicious, Bobby stayed up, a slave to the knowledge that their attempt at rest will likely be futile. _Something_ was wearing them down. Nightmares, insomnia, some evil critter preying on their minds, the leftover anxiety from a year's worth of death stalking them...

It didn't matter what. Bobby could read it in the too-spare lines of their bodies, in the need for constant contact.

(Had they ever really let go?)

The pile of notes on the table grew, Bobby's scrawl growing ever more illegible. Some would undoubtedly have to be copied over, come morning, or a time when his hands weren't knotted with cramps. Still, information about Deals is all too scarce, and Bobby writes and writes, trying to get every scrap, every nuance and expression and expectation down. He'd organize it for his own journal later.

Words spill across the pages, blue ink smeared by a weathered hand.

Moonlight edges the table in silver by the time Bobby's hand is too cramped to write more. He sets down the pen, flexing stiff fingers, and reads 2:11 on the clock.

There's been no sound from the guest room. Or at least, none that Bobby's heard, which, given his focus on his notes, isn't surprising.

Still...

The chair drags across the floor, making Bobby flinch as he gets to his feet and stretches, twisting his back and hearing his joints pop. "Well, old man, suppose it's a good thing you aren't out there hunting anymore." Sparing the piles of notes one last glance, he turns towards his own bedroom, past the guest room. He paused, resting a balled fist on the wall, head bent, and listened.

Nothing but silence: no creaking boards, old as the house is; no calls of nocturnal animals outside, or crickets; no whimpers or moans or god forbid snoring...

Bobby almost wishes he had an excuse to look, to crack open the door and peer around the edge. Almost wishes he could offer help, comfort, something, in this living hell the boys have become trapped in.

But that would mean that that living hell is taking yet another--

A moan, low, desperate, aching, breaks the heavy silence. Dean. 

Bobby knows the boys too well, has nursed them through too many injuries to mistake. "Damnit, boy, you may have gotten out, but you're still _paying_ for it..." His hand tightens on the doorknob.

"Sammy?" Cloth against cloth covers the half-turn and release of the doorknob, and the sounds that follow are distinct enough for Bobby to visualize.

_//Twisting the sheets, Dean's arms and legs move rhythmically, running in whatever nightmare his mind is locked in. Searching for Sam, or maybe trying to catch up -- the lost, forlorn cries of his brother's name could signify either._

_"Dean." A pillow flies into the wall as Sam flings one arm forward, then throws the heavy comforter back. "Dean!" He rests a hand on Dean's shoulder, gripping hard._

_Dean wakes with a half-gasp, half-grunt, spine arcing up like a coiled spring. "Sammy," and the name is a benediction, relief and so close to worship as to not even matter. "Sammy, I--"_

_"Shhh, it's okay." Sam gathers him up, presses him close, Dean's sweat-slick skin sliding across his own in tiny squeaks echoed by the bedsprings._

_"No, no, I couldn't, you were gone, nothing there." Dean's voice shakes, breaks, words gravel-rough and broken. "Can never find you, not in time, not before they, they..."_

_"Hey, hey, it's just a dream, just a nightmare. I'm here, not leaving you."_

_Dean lets out a sort of choked moan, then hiccups and dissolves into sobs he can't muffle against Sam's chest.//_

Bobby squeezes his eyes shut, tears catching in his beard, and retreats to the kitchen, knowing sleep won't be coming for any of them soon.


End file.
